


She Missed the Small Talk

by caramelcoastal



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, At Least Pre-Canon for the First Half, F/F, Femslash, Humor, Jealousy, Love Triangle, Pre-Canon, Science, Science Girlfriends!, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-02-28 22:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13281540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelcoastal/pseuds/caramelcoastal
Summary: Angela Zieglar just wanted to lead a boring, ordinary life, which is very hard to do, given her place of work and circumstances. She managed by, until she had the dashing Dr. Moira O'Deorain thrust into her life. Brilliantly smart, oddly hot, and very cynical, Angela finds herself at odds with Moira often. Just as the two begin to bond over working on Angela's new invention together, the gorgeous wife of Gerard Lacroix captures Angela's attention. The closer the good doctor gets to both of these women, the further away she gets from her ideal ordinary life.





	1. Chapter 1

The day was August, the 24th. It was the day after Angela Zieglar’s 27th birthday. Everyday, she went through the same exact routine. Wake up, brush her teeth, gaze deeply into the mirror at her perpetually young face, shower, blow dry and comb through her hair, and put her clothes on in the exact order of underwear, bra, socks, pants, undershirt, overshirt, then labcoat, making sure to adjust the name tag so that it showed clearly. She would then return to the mirror where she’d previously stared at herself, and do her makeup, putting her hair in a nice ponytail- or, if she was feeling like living dangerously, perhaps leave her hair down for the day. 

That was when she could leave the bedroom of her apartment and proceed forward to the kitchen, where she would feed the cats, and usually grab something to eat. Once she’d eaten, she would put her shoes on, right foot first, then left foot, then it was time to go to work. This was how it had been since she was just 17, and it had gone on, uninterrupted, for an entire decade. It was mundane, it was predictable, it was boring- and that’s how she liked it. She got more than enough excitement for her liking at work, she didn’t need more.

She headed towards her car, an old, beat up hoverware that Jack Morrison had gotten for her several years back when he learned she was still riding a bike to work. He would have gotten her one of the high-end cars, but she refused, and he couldn’t get her to budge on the topic.

After scanning her fingerprint, the cars engine revved up and came to life, and with that, she made her way to her favorite coffee place, the Big Bean. She went there everyday, always buying the same thing: a plain, small coffee with sugar and cream, and nothing else. No fancy lattes, no whipped cream, nothing. 

Walking into the coffee shop marked the end of her normal routine, where the first anomaly took place that day. 

The line was predictably long, filled with drowsy humans and omnics alike waiting for either coffee or caffeinated oil. The line was long, snaking all the way back to the entrance. Angela sighed, and sent a text to her co-workers group chat.

“Long line at the Big Bean, may be a bit late to the lab. If there’s an emergencies, can you handle them Amari?”

She picked Ana, not because she was always the best in emergencies- although she was- but because she texted back quicker than everyone else. 

“Of course, don’t worry about it.” Ana, predictably, got back to her on time. 

“Thank you so much, Captain Amari.” She sent, with a little smiley face for added friendliness.  


“I can get down there and clear that line if you’d like me to, Angela.” Gabe responded. “Call it a state of emergency, empty the place out.” She laughed to herself, Gabe was one of the best parts of working there. The best boss she could have ever asked for.

Jack replied to Gabe before Angela could. “No. That would incite panic.”

“You’re just a barrel of fun, Jack.”

Angela knew the two were about to get into it over the group chat, so she muted her phone and put it in her pocket. The line slowly made its way to the front. Finally, after an eternity, she was three people away from the front. Just a minor setback in an otherwise ordinary day.

That all ended when the front door swung open. In walked a slender, gangly butch woman with red hair chopped short, wearing a lab coat that matched Angela’s. Out walked any semblance of Angela’s routine. An aquamarine tie laid rather sloppily from her neck, peeking out from behind the wrinkled lab coat. This woman was a hot mess, in that she looked like she barely gave a shit, and yet Angela still found herself attracted to her. The cleanest things on her were her white lab gloves.

Angela noticed her features as stepped forward. A very prominent nose, resting just above her smug smirk. She seemed to have heterochromia iridum - maybe the only hetero thing about this woman - with one amber and one blue eye. She had snake’s eyes, slender and cocky. Angela was repulsed, and attracted at the same time by this woman, who stood well above six feet tall.

She stood to the side, waiting for the omnic in front of Angela to step forward. When they did, she swooped in, cutting Angela off. 

Angela was taken aback. She tapped her shoulder. “Excuse me?”

She got no response.

She tapped her shoulder again.

No response.

“I said excuse me? You cut in line, I’ve been here all morning for coffee.”

Finally, she got a response in the form of a low, sultry laugh and a snide comment in an accent she couldn’t pick up on right that second. “I’m sure you can wait for one more person then.” 

Shocked by the rudeness of this bizarre, albeit kind of hot stranger, Angela let a tiny noise out. It sounded like she was having all the air squeezed out of her.

“That’s rude,” was all she could manage to say. 

“Was it? Sorry girly, but my time is important, and just look at the line forming behind you. I don’t have it in me to wait through that.” Irish. She had an Irish accent. The way she said ‘girly’ sent shivers up Angela’s spine.

What was she going to do? She wasn’t a yeller, and she would never push her out of the way. There was absolutely nothing she could do. She just let her keep the spot, and sighed. 

When the Irish woman got to the counter to make her order, she pulled a card out of her coat pocket. “What’s the most expensive coffee you’re selling right now? I want two, in the biggest cups you have, and throw in one of the pink doughnuts you have.” She tapped the glass display hard. “Actually, make that four.”

The intimidated cashier started punching in her order, only to be interrupted when the tapped the top of the register. “And throw in a few cookies. Three cookies- no, make that six. Six cookies.”

The cashier shivered, and inhaled deeply. “Anything else, sir?”

“Sir? Who are you ‘sir’ing?” She crossed her arms.

“Sorry, ma’am-”

“Apology not accepted, get me my order. Now.” Angela could not believe how rude she was being to this employee, nor how much food she was ordering. That was a lot for one woman, and this place could be so expensive.

A second employee scrambled out, carrying two giant coffee drinks that made Angela drop her jaw. Coffees, topped with a mountain of foam, caramel and chocolate sauce zig-zags, oreo and chocolate chip cookie crumbles, chunks of broken-up hershey’s bars, and a cinnamon stick sticking out the side. Angela could smell the coffees where she stood, and it was heavenly.

The Irish woman turned around and handed her one of the cups of coffee, two doughnuts, and one cookie. 

“Thank you,” she said, staring in disbelief at the goodies before her.

“Don’t thank me. I cut in line. Even though my time is more important, you clearly have something to be. And I always have a little extra money for cute girls.” Effortlessly holding all five cookies, a giant drink, and two doughnuts, she swiped her card and walked out towards her car, leaving Angela in a state of shock. She only snapped out if it when finally the person behind her told her she was holding up the line.

With no need to order a drink after the stranger had bought her a massive one, she immediately walked out towards her car. How was she going to drive with this? She’d always gotten a small, ordinary coffee with a lid on it for easy driving. After failing to find a solution in her car, she came to the conclusion that she was already going to be late, she might as well take the time to drink the coffee down a bit and reflect on what the hell just happened.

The Irish woman cut in front of her in line, shrugged her off, and proceeded to buy her a bunch of expensive goodies. Not to mention she kept five out of the six cookies for herself. Angela wasn’t dissing free food but, how many cookies did that woman need? She could have at least sacrificed two. She was cute though, even if her clothes were a wreck. 

After a moment of reflection, she checked on her drink, which she’d gulped down to a car-safe amount. Her place of work wasn’t too far from there, and most of the early morning traffic was gone now, which was convenient. 

The best part of her daily commute to work was the view of the cliffside she got to pass by everyday, it always took her breath away. As she passed by, she thought again about the red haired woman, who she’d never see again. It almost made her kind of sad, in a weird way, and she started to think about all the people she’d meet and never seen again.

And then she arrived at her workplace.

She went through the eye clearance and pass clearance, as she did everyday, and walked in, past the combat training rooms, the meeting offices where Jack or Gabe or Captain Amari would sit down and talk with diplomats, and she towards her laboratory.

Well, it wasn’t her laboratory. It was technically everyone’s, but she liked to think that she loved it more than any other lab worker. There was also the medbay, where she was in charge, but that was so much less interesting than science. At least, it was to her at the time. She only had one patient in the medbay, a young man named Genji Shimada who’d had the shit beat out of him by his older brother, and was now recovering from an operation that was going to save his life. Oh, and make him a cool robot. That too.

She would go in and check on him in a minute, she wanted to continue the experiment she’d left off on the day before. Her masterpiece - the caduceus staff. It was only a prototype, and it looked like a giant needle for her own amusement, but it showed great promise in performance enhancing, and healing the injured.

Winston, a giant gorilla (don’t question it) stepped over to examine her work. “That looks fantastic, Angela.”

She smiled, and lifted it up. It was pretty heavy and awkward, but she was getting used to it. “Thank you, Winston. It’s just a prototype right now, but I have very high hopes for it.”

“Genji had a fever last night, but other than that the surgery seems to have gone off without a hitch. You really did some amazing work there, with how little time you had, I’m impressed.”

“He’s recovering, that’s what’s important. How’s your… Patient?” Angela didn’t know how to refer to Oxton.

“Lena is fine. I think she’s lonely in that stabilizing unit we’re keeping her in, but you know what will happen if we let her out. I try to spend time with her when I have a free moment. I’m trying to think of a solution but, I’m just one gorilla, trying to solve chronal disassociation.” When Lena left the stabilizing unit, she would often blink in and out of existence, sometimes for hours, even days. Every scientist there was stumped, Winston was the only one who was close to a breakthrough. He’d designed the stabilizing unit, he just needed to find a way to keep her stabile permanently.

Footsteps could be heard, click-clacking behind the two of them, followed by a familiar sultry Irish voice. “Have you tried creating a small version of the stabilizing unit?”

Winston and Angela both turned around to look at her. Angela, for the third time that day, was in disbelief.

There she was, the woman from the Big Bean, and she seemed just as surprised to see Angela there as Angela was to see her. But, she quickly shrugged it off quickly went back to being cool and aloof.

“A small version of the chronal stabilizing unit, something she could equip to herself. Maybe a belt, wristband, necklace, or-”

Winston jumped up. “Or a chestplate! The machines in the unit would work perfectly as chestplates, that’s brilliant, thank you O'Deorain, that’s brilliant.”

Angela turned to Winston. “Who is this woman?”

“Moira O’Deorain. She’s the new geneticist, she works with Blackwatch under Gabe’s supervision. Jack told me Gabe’s interest was peaked by genetics all of the sudden, and Moira is supposed to be his advisor. Everything else is kept in secret.”

“But Gabe never supervises anything, we aren’t even allowed to know where he is most of the time.”

“I think that’s the point.”

Moira sighed. “If you’re done gossipping about me, then I’d like to see what that staff is that you’re working on. It’s… Fascinating.”

“It’s my staff, I’ll be using it to help heal the injured and sick.” 

She ran her hand along it, intrigued. “Yes…” She smirked to herself. “Yes, it’s fascinating.” It wasn’t even noon yet, and Angela could already tell one thing by the arrival of Moira.

Nothing would ever be the same.


	2. Chapter 2: Flammable Sponges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moira and Angela's staff project is going well. Too bad Moira made some 'special adjustments' to the prototype before Angela got to test it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a huge fan of the title. That may change but I don't know.

The day was August, the 27th. It had been four days since Angela Zieglar’s 27th birthday. Everyday, she went through the same exact routine. Wake up, brush her teeth, gaze deeply into the mirror at her perpetually young face, shower, blow dry and comb through her hair, and put her clothes on in the exact order of underwear, bra, socks, pants, undershirt, overshirt, then labcoat, making sure to adjust the name tag so that it showed clearly. She would then return to the mirror where she’d previously stared at herself, and do her makeup. Usually, this was when she would put her hair in a nice neat ponytail, but, given the events of the past few days, she felt like living dangerously. No ponytail. It was at a lab-safe length, falling just above her shoulders. 

While she was feeding her cats, her phone buzzed. She opened the text up, seeing it was from a number she didn’t recognize. 

“Don’t go to the coffee place. Just come straight to work.”

Confused, she texted back. “Who’s this?”

The response was delayed. That gave her the creeps. A long, uncomfortable minute passed, before a picture was sent. It loaded for a second, and she tensed up.

It was a selfie of a very stern looking Moira. That was a relief. At least, kind of.

“It’s a waste of time. We’re going to be working on the staff today. I got you coffee already, hurry up and get here before it gets cold.”

Angela shouldn’t have been surprised. Moira had taken a great interest in her staff, lately. She hadn’t figured out whether that was good or bad, yet. All she knew was that they’d actually gotten a lot of work done on it in the past few days. She had to fight to keep it shaped like a big needle, but Moira ultimately relented.

She’d come to pick up on certain quirks of the Irish woman, but much about her was still shrouded in mystery. She was shady, and cunning. Every action she made was cold, and calculated. But she also looked like a mess every day, with her lab coat and tie perpetually looking like total chaos. When they were working, she spoke little, except for when she wanted something, or had a suggestion. Then again, her suggestions were less ‘suggesting’ something and more ‘demanding’ it. 

The drive to the building was ordinary as it always was, the only different thing being that she didn’t stop at the coffee joint. She couldn’t help but wonder why Moira had this interest in her staff. It was certainly interesting having a partner to work with and bounce ideas off of, but it also got frustrating putting up with all of Moira’s demands. That said, Moira wasn’t usually outright mean to Angela. At most, she was a demanding and bossy.

The second she stepped foot into the lab that day, as if on cue, Moira gestured for her to come over to the staff. She was hunched over it with a tool in hand, screwing the metal panel back in place. “Angela, get over here. I think I got one of the beams working.”

Angela’s pace picked up drastically. “How?”

“I added a few tweaks to the power beam using what I’d learned in a past research project. Check it out.” 

She put a bucket full of sponges on the lab table.

“Where did you get all those sponges?”

“Gabe gave me the key to the janitors closet.” She smirked, handing the staff over to Angela.

Confused, she aimed the end of the staff at the bucket of sponges. It was a barely functioning prototype, taking quite a few seconds to warm up. 

“I thought you said you’d gotten the power beam functioning, shouldn’t we test this on a per-” 

Out shot a dark purple beam that locked onto the bucket and caused it to begin rattling intensely, before bursting, sending hot metal chunks and flaming sponges all over the lab. The horrible, piercing drone of the smoke alarm rang in the air, and the sprinklers went off, soaking everyone in the room, and ruining many, many experiments and inventions, including the staff. It was a prototype, it wasn’t built to survive water. 

Angela looked at the staff in her hands, completely dejected. Moira was frustrated, but tried to maintain a cool demeanor. Her brow was furrowed, and that was about it.

“Moira, sponges are flammable! And that wasn’t even the original beam, what was that supposed to be?” Moira said nothing as her puffy hair sagged and covered her left eye. Angela’s clothes were drenched, her makeup smeared, and her hair was sopping wet. Jack and Gabe would be there any minute to reprimand whoever started the fire; Angela hated being yelled at. 

She tried to take a single step, but slipped on a puddle and fell. Moira reflexively tried to catch her, and she did - by the sleeve. Angela was suspended, half tripped for a moment, before she fell out of her lab coat and hit the floor face-first. Moira was still holding up the now freed coat. She gestured a hand down, like she was going to help her up. Angela sneered, smacking her hand away and trying to stand up on her own, slipping again and falling to the floor, ass-first this time. Moira, uncharacteristically patient, reached down one more time to help her up. Angela took it this time, but she didn’t like it. 

Just as she was getting up, the door loudly slammed open, startling them both and causing them to both fall to the hard wet lab ground. Angela moved a wet strand of hair out of her eye and looked at Jack and Gabe knowing exactly what was about to happen.

This was a horrible day.

“Which one of you started that fire?!” Demanded Jack, almost hollering. Gabe scowled from behind him, but he was as cool as a cucumber.

“I-I did, sir…” Angela raised a her hand from the floor. Jack stomped over and pulled her up himself. He offered the same thing to Moira, but she got up on her own. 

“It was working perfectly last night while I was working by myself,” Moira stated. “I have no idea why it did that.” She didn’t break the icy look she was giving to him.

“I-I-I didn’t mean to do anything, I didn’t even know it was going to do that!” Angela stammered, almost crying. She’d hated being reprimanded, ever since she was little. It caused her anxiety to shoot through the roof.

“Who knows how much research and progress was lost today? Whether you meant to do anything or not, it doesn’t matter. Someone,” he paused, looking at her, and then at Moira, “has to take the blame for this. And you two seem to be the culprits.”

“Of c-c-course. I’m so sorry, Morris-” Moira raised her hand, cutting Angela off while not breaking eye-contact with Morrison.

“Actually, I don’t think it was Angela’s fault at all. It worked perfectly, like a charm last night. Didn’t cause anything to explode. Then again, this workstation didn’t have anything in it’s cupboards last night, aside from our tools. Today, this was here,” she stated, not breaking her frosty glare aimed at Morrison, while she opened up the cupboard. Sure enough, the chronal de-accelerator Winston was working on was tucked down there. 

“Really? You’re blaming someone else? Why don’t we demonstrate it again, and really see if it was Dr. Winston’s fault,” Morrison said, crossing his arms.

“Can’t. The sprinklers broke it. The sprinklers triggered by the staff. The staff caused to malfunction by the presence of an impossibly powerful piece of equipment, irresponsibly left unlocked under our table. Does that sound like a responsible decision - a decision, mind you, made entirely by Dr. Winston - to you?”

Jack scowled, but he couldn’t argue with her. He looked over at his partner. Gabe sighed, and spoke for him.

“Winston will be dealt with. Everyone, go clean yourselves up in the restrooms. When you’re done, go home, you’re all done for the day. The janitors are gonna have to come up here and deal with this mess.” He sighed, taking his beanie off and shaking his head in disappointment. 

Moira started heading in the direction of the other disgruntled scientists, but Angela grabbed and tugged on her sleeve.

“I have a private bathroom in the Medbay, and there’s real towels there. Come with me, unless drying yourself with paper towels and air dryers sounds like fun to you.”

Moira smirked down at her. “That’s a perk.”

When they got in the bathroom, Angela sighed. “I can’t believe Winston’s machine did that.” She sighed, washing the ruined makeup off her face.

“Oh, it didn’t. I lied,” Moira said nonchalantly, drying her hair.

Angela’s jaw dropped. “You what?”

“That was complete BS, that whole thing about Winston’s machine. But Morrison and Reyes don’t know that, and they can’t disprove it either, with the staff in the state it is.” Her dried hair had poofed up, making her look ridiculous. She pulled a comb from her pocket.

“Then, what caused it to do that?!” She was almost yelling, but quieted herself so that no one outside could hear her.

“Well, five minutes before you got here, I decided to apply my own research to your staff, replacing the power beam with more of a draining ray.”

“Wait, you turned my staff into a weapon? Moira, I designed it to heal, and assist! I don’t want to hurt people with that!”

“Calm yourself, girlie. Obviously, it didn’t work. Besides, it’s not your staff, it’s ours. I’ve done a lot to improve your original design. We know how to rebuild it, it’ll be back in our hands within a week in the same state it was before. No harm done.” She wiped her neck down.

“Actually, there was a lot of harm done! We destroyed dozens of peoples’ hard work, and we got my friend in trouble! He’s already stressed out about helping Oxton. Now, they’re going to punish him, and it’s going to make a bad situation worse. You don’t care? At all?”

Moira looked over at her, and sighed. “I don’t go out of my way to hurt people. But, sometimes, for progress to be made, you have to crack a few eggs.”

“Winston is not an egg. How did you even know that was down there?”

“Oh I had no idea. Just dumb Irish luck I suppose.”

“You’re telling me you based your entire plan to get us out of trouble on Irish luck, and the plan you had in mind involved throwing Winston under the bus. And that’s if his machine was under there to begin with.”

“I had less than a minute to come up with something, and it’s not like you had any better plans, other than sniveling and crying in front of our bosses. Do you always do that when someone’s mad at you?”

Angela didn’t reply to that last question. “Next time something like this happens, can you just promise me you’ll try to come up with a solution that doesn’t have any casualties?”

Moira sighed. “Is that what you want from me? Fine.” She finished brushing her hair, checked herself out in the mirror, and tucked the comb back into her pocket.

“And no more secret last minute additions to the staff, at least not without discussing it with me first. I’ve put months into that staff, years if you count all the years I’ve been studying cell reparation to prepare to make it.” 

“Fine. Anything else I can do for you, your majesty?” she asked sarcastically. 

Angela frowned at her. “Don’t start anymore fires.”

She laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They walked out together, only separating when they got to the parking lot. Moira waved goodbye as she walked away. She drove off without looking back, leaving Angela by herself, wracked with guilt. This was the only the beginning of things that were going to go wrong, she felt it in her core.

Moira didn’t even give her the coffee. She probably didn’t even buy her a coffee to begin with.

Bitch.


End file.
